Jury to decide fate of accused in Atlantic Gardens murder

Defence Attorney Mark Waldron and Prosecutors Tiffini Lyken, Narissa Leander and Seeta Bishundial have presented closing arguments in the Richard Stanton murder trial and it is now up to the 12-member jury to determine whether the defendant is innocent or guilty.
Stanton is accused of executing Patricia Sanasie three years ago in front of her Atlantic Gardens, East Coast Demerara (ECD) home.
Presiding Judge Brassington Reynolds will this morning sum up the case before handing it over to the jury for deliberation. On Wednesday last, the prosecution closed its case and on Friday, Justice Reynolds overruled the defence’s no-case

submission.
During a one hour presentation to the jury on Monday, Stanton led his own defence via an unsworn statement from the prisoner’s dock.
He professed that he was not a killer and that he was not born to kill anyone. He said that he was working at his sister’s establishment, the Dynasty Night Club, at the time Police first picked him up in January 2015 and when they re-arrested and charged him in April 2015.
Stanton told the Court that he grew up watching his mother being abused by males and because of this, he did not have it in him to hurt anyone.
He was picked out of an identification (ID) parade (as Number 3) by the late woman’s daughter, Ramona Sanasie who was driving the car the night her mother was killed. Stanton disputed Police saying that some of the persons in the line-up were not similar in features to him.
Sanasie was killed as she exited her vehicle and was about to open her gate at her home. A year prior to the woman’s death, a similar attempt was made on her husband’s life, and she and her brother were implicated.
One of the investigators, Detective Constable Samuel Headley testified last week

Tuesday that several of the exhibits which he had lodged at the Sparendaam Police Station after he had given evidence during the Preliminary Inquiry at the Magistrate’s Court had gone missing. The jury was told that the ballistics report and two warheads which were removed from Sanasie’s body during a post-mortem examination cannot be located.
Ramona Sanasie told investigators that a “big built” man exited a silver Toyota Raum, and she saw him twice as he passed and looked at her. Her mother was reportedly shot to her chest, abdomen and neck, among other areas, and was pronounced dead on arrival at the Georgetown Public Hospital.